Webupon

Don’t begin building a new website by sitting at the computer and using software to design the look of the page. It sounds like a good start but you’ll find it’s really a good way to make a bad start!

Top Down, Not Bottom Up

You start the build of a house not by laying bricks but by drawing plans and, in a rather simplified form, that’s how you start the design of a website.

First you need to know how many pages you want, so begin by writing ‘Home’ on a sheet of paper and list underneath the other pages all on the same line. Now connect them by lines to the home page. Usually each separate page will then have pages that flow from it so put these on successive lines beneath – see the diagram at the end for guidance.

So how do you know how many pages you want? You usually don’t, you will have to think and guess but be prepared to change the layout as new pages suggest themselves.

This skeleton of your site is vitally important so take your time and try to get it right from the start.

The Page Template

Draw a rectangle in the approximate ratio of a page, this is usually 4:3 or, for A4 paper try 8 inches wide and 6 inches down.

Get some coloured pencils and play around with the design until you get the look of the page the way you want. You can, if you want, make dummy elements with a graphics program, print them and then cut them out. This creates a very intuitive and easy way to experiment with the design.

You are usually designing the navigation position and how you want it to look, what you want in the borders and what banner (header) and footer you want. The more accurately you can picture these, the better will be the finished page. Obviously leave space for the text area which will be different on each page and, to get the look right, print some nonsense text for this content.

At this stage it’s easy to play around with the look to get the effect that you want. Try repositioning elements and different colour schemes and, if you can, try to get an idea of the way the graphics will look.

Colour schemes

Colour is never (or shouldn’t be) left to chance or last minute decision so spend time working out what colours you want and then write them down either as a list of colour names or hex values.

It is desirable to have perhaps four or five colours and no more than that. Again, colours are important so it is worth spending time to get the colour scheme right.

Graphics: The Fun Part

Once you arrive at this stage the design part is done and you can concentrate on the first stage of building. Use your graphics program to make the pictures and navigation items that you want. It’s best to prepare one set as masters and one set to use.

It’s important to have all your graphics complete and ready to slot into place before you start the build so spend time completing and optimising each picture and navigation element.

Something to Say

Last, before the build, you need to write the content for each page in a text editor or word processor. Finish writing and then spellcheck each page before putting it aside for three days.

After the three days read it again slowly and see if you still like it and then look for any silly mistakes that you might have made. If you haven’t done it this way before you will amazed at what you find!

The last thing you do with text is to spellcheck it again before you use it.

Now Build It!

Now is the time to get your software out and start building. You have a design, you have the graphics and you have the text. All you have to do now is slot them together and concentrate on getting the actual building and the mechanics of the site right.

By working this way you have a sensible and logical workflow that will let you spend quality time with one part of the site at a time to ensure that you get it right and make the building of your website as easy as possible.